Sensex sheds 77pts; ONGC drops 3.5%

The Sensex opened with a negative gap of 20 points at 9294. After taking a sharp dip in the opening deals, the index jumped back to touch a high of 9303 - still down 11 points from its previous close.

Across-the-board selling due to weak global markets and rising crude prices saw the index plunge to a low of 9158 - down 156 points from its previous close. However, selective buying towards the close saw the index erase some losses, and close with a loss of 77 points at 9238.

While the BSE Smallcap index tumbled over 1% to 6076, the BSE Midcap index was down 0.5% at 4559. The BSE Oil & Gas index slumped over 2% to 4462. The BSE Bankex and PSU index declined 1.3% each to 5013 and 5384, respectively.

Declines continued to be ahead of advances 2:1 - out of 2,551 stocks traded, 1,686 declined, 806 advanced and the rest were unchanged today.

Late buying at the Hindalco counter saw the stock surge 2.7% to close at Rs 152. Wipro gained 2.6% to Rs 461.

Gujarat Ambuja spurted over 2% to Rs 90. Dr.Reddy's was up 1.2% at Rs 1,029.

Reliance, which closed at Rs 715 in the specail one-hour trading session for the post de-merger price discovery, closed at Rs 694. ONGC slumped 3.5% to Rs 1,181.

Tata Motors, HDFC Bank, Reliance Energy, SBI, HLL, Larsen & Toubro, ICICI Bank, NTPC, ITC, Maruti, Infosys and Cipla declined 1-2% each. 

HPCL tumbled nearly 6% to Rs 317. India Cements dropped 5% to Rs 111. Mirc Electronics, Bombay Dyeing, HCL Infosys, Apollo Tyre, BEML, GMDC, Micro Inks, D-Link, VisualSoft, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Sterlite and Syndicate Bank declined 3-4% each.

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 2,257.07 crore (including the one-hour special trading session) followed by Satyam (Rs 155.44 crore), Educomp (Rs 132.45 crore), SBI (Rs 118.62 crore) and Infosys (Rs 112.84 crore).

Reliance also led the volume chart with trades of around 3.19 crore shares (including two crore shares traded in the one-hour special trading session) followed by Nandan Exim (68.08 lakh shares), Dena Bank (55.40 lakh shares), Educomp (44.29 lakh shares) and Bartronics (34.71 lakh shares).